


I Stay Up Late and Bottle Memories For You

by zombified_queer



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Love Confessions, M/M, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 02:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15854460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/pseuds/zombified_queer
Summary: "I was 19 for a long time. I don’t even know how long. I was 19 for longer than I care to admit, and then one day, I was suddenly a grownup."





	I Stay Up Late and Bottle Memories For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ameerkatofficial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameerkatofficial/gifts).



> Originally posted on my Tumblr. Come join me if you like crying about unrequited love and the slow, slow, slow loss of time.

Earl wanted desperately to grow up. He was still nineteen and he'd been nineteen for more or less a decade. At first, it had been fun, Cecil adapting to his role as the Voice and still making time to take joyrides with Earl out to Radon Canyon or sunrise benders and White Sands Ice Cream at noon.

He's not sure when it changed, when Cecil started pulling away, growing more distant, more of a workaholic than Earl's ever seen his friend. 

And then Cecil turned twenty.

Earl began to keep track through Cecil's birthdays, the vibrant Voice always inviting Earl over for red velvet and brandy—the good kind Cecil kept for company, the expensive and very Adult Liquor instead of sneaking orange milk like giddy teenager, the kind Earl always thought Cecil might taste like, lips burning as they—

"Early bird," Cecil purrs, head on Earl's lap, the cake gone (probably skittering off to some dark corner to brood and lick its knife wounds and plot some sort of escape attempt) and their brandy forgotten (did those glasses ever exist?). "You always look like a July afternoon. It wouldn't kill you to smile. At least, not this week."

Tentatively, Earl puts an arm around Cecil. "Sorry, Ceece."

Cecil hums, warm against Earl's side, half-asleep. "Early, when are you gonna get older?"

"I don't know, Ceece," Earl says. "Maybe during this year's poetry reading, I'll magically be thirty."

Cecil scoffs and pulls away from Earl to stare at him with those intense eyes. Earl wonders if Cecil can read thoughts or if that's another rumour perpetrated by Station Management. He hopes Cecil can't read thoughts because Earl has some thoughts about Cecil's mouth and-

"Early, when you get older, we're gonna celebrate."

"We're not celebrating now?" 

Cecil scoffs again and gets up. Earl misses the weight and warmth of Cecil and yet he's standing right there. "More brandy?"

"Cecil?"

"Hmm?"

"We should get a case of orange milk," Earl muses. "Go make dirty jokes about the moon."

"You only relive your graduation once," Cecil answers. "And I'm saving it."

"Saving it for what?"

The way that Cecil stares at Earl is delightfully cold. He doesn't say a word, striding off to get more liquor.

"Hey Ceece?"

"Yeah, Early Bird?" Cecil calls.

"Happy birthday."

"I'm only twenty-one, Early, it's nothing huge." 

Cecil comes back without brandy but with a bottle of rum instead, offering the bottle to Earl. Together, on the old, sunken sofa, they pass the bottle back and forth, sipping and saying nothing.

"I'm gonna take up woodcarving," Cecil announces, out of the blue. 

"You do that, Ceece," Earl says, grinning. "You always were the best in our troop with a chainsaw."

Cecil laughs and that sound warms Earl more than the booze or the desert heat that insists on creeping in with no concern to the swamp cooler or the bloodstone runes painted on the door frames to keep it out.

Earl looks over at Cecil, taking in the shape of his jaw, the span of his shoulders, the white of his eyes, the ever-moving tattoos over Cecil's forearms, the white ink always quietly protecting the Voice. He licks his lips, thinking about leaning in, about how Cecil might taste like sweet, cheap rum and memories, and he closes his eyes—

He wakes up alone. In his own bed. The splitting headache is the only thing that lets him know it wasn't a dream.

Earl Harlan shrugs off the lost hours and reaches over to switch on the radio. He wouldn't miss Cecil's shows for anything.

"We all have our memories, but do our memories have us?" Cecil implores in that smooth tone. "Welcome to Night Vale" 

Earl rests his head in the crook of his arm and listens intently.

The after-work joyrides taper off. Cecil walks right past Earl some nights, though there's no way he could miss Earl's red leather jacket or the electric blue Thunderbird. It's like Cecil doesn't recognize him at all on these nights.

Other nights, Cecil rides his Royal Enfield Interceptor over before the sun's up, revving his bike until Earl stumbles out of the house, still half-asleep and rubbing his eyes. On those nights, Cecil tosses his helmet at Earl and cheers, "Saddle up, deputy!"

Earl savours those nights. It's always a toss up where they'll go. Sometimes they stumble through the Ralph's fluorescent aisles, Cecil selecting their picnic lunch of liquor like a shrewd tiger, looking over the labels and asking, "Scale of one to ten, Early Bird?"

More often than not, they go over a six, but try not to go over a nine.

When they're out in the desert, Cecil will talk at length about the new man in his life—and there seems to be no end, though a lot of them are people Earl's never even heard of and doesn’t even think exist—and Earl will mention he's considered college in Ala-bam-uh or Oo-tah or maybe even Cal-eye-four-nay, which always makes Cecil laugh in his charming way. 

He doesn't mention than he never goes past consideration because he could never go so far away from Cecil.

"Hey Early?"

It's a vodka sort of night and they've rode out to Radon Canyon, both of them feeling lazy. Earl's set up a campfire just for the hell of it and Cecil's got his head in Earl's lap.

"Yeah, Ceece?"

"Promise me something?"

"Anything."

"When I get hitched, you've gotta be my best man, Early."

Earl takes a swig of vodka. Maybe it's the liquor or maybe it's the venom in the distillation, but he answers, "You say that like I won't be the groom."

Cecil's eyes widen. He sits up, Earl's lap feeling empty without Cecil's touch. "Oh."

"Cecil?"

"Early, you're still nineteen," Cecil notes. He touches Earl's face with both hands, warm fingers roaming over Earl's forehead, his nose, his jaw, as if the Voice can commit every freckle to memory. "Earl."

"Cecil," Earl says, setting the bottle aside. He holds Cecil's wrists—bony, bony Cecil with that thousand-mile-metabolism—and looks at him seriously. "I'm still me."

"But you're nineteen," Cecil says, as if it's a proper rejection. 

"I'm nineteen," Earl says, "but it doesn't matter, Ceece."

Cecil grabs the bottle of vodka, finishing it in a few gulps. Earl stumbles to his feet.

"Cecil Gershwin Palmer," Earl's voice echoing through the canyons, whispering gentle encouragements and replies, "I'm in love with you!"

For an eternity, the canyon simply echoes the confession back, more powerful with every second, distorting Earl’s voice into something inhuman, like the embodiment of love or inspiration itself. It almost sounds like there’s someone else screaming it, just to help Earl.

"You can't be in love with me, Earl," Cecil says, tossing the empty bottle off into the dark where the shadows take it, probably to make wind-chimes. "If you loved me, you would have said something."

"Ceece, I've loved you since forever," Earl says. When he tries to take Cecil's hand, the cephalopod around Cecil's wrist makes a watery snarl and Earl stops, hand dropping at his side again. "I don't think I'll ever stop loving you, Cecil."

Cecil shoves the motorcycle helmet at Earl. "Let's go home. I have things to do."

Earl sighs, the helmet sinking down over his head like he's done hundreds of times. The ride back is quiet and Earl clings tight to Cecil, not wanting to let him go, even when they pull up to Earl's house. 

"Early."

Earl slides the helmet off, shaking his head and handing it to Cecil. "Ceece."

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure."

Earl gets off Cecil's motorcycle, but pauses on the porch, watching Cecil ride off, a blur of black and violet and white in the night. He's so handsome it makes Earl's heart ache to know he's speeding away from the something they could have had. 

Stumbling through the house, Earl corners a pack of cigarettes, pulling one from the pack and lighting it. He didn't get that pyrokinesis badge for nothing. But they taste like sage and lavender and when the pack scuttles into Earl's hand, he realizes it's an old pack Cecil's left at some point or another, probably spawning more in the dark corners of the house.

He blinks and his lap is full of tobacco-sage-lavender ash, the filter held firm between his lips. 

Earl Harlan reaches over and turns his living room radio on, listening to the council minutes and mandatory announcements and a segment on proper bloodstone circle cleansing. At some point, he must have brushed the ash out of his lap, cemented deep in the carpet and in the fibres of the couch. 

For Earl Harlan, tomorrow never comes.


End file.
